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Vampire Survivors: The Best

Arcana Builds
Arcanas were introduced into Vampire Survivors in
a recent update, and there are a few cool builds
centered around Arcanas players should try.
BY JEFF DRAKE UPDATED NOV 22, 2022

Arcanas were introduced into Vampire

Survivors in a recent update with the purpose
of allowing the player to alter the rules of
the game in small but interesting ways. So far
these Arcanas mostly deal with improving
certain weapons in new ways, but there are a
few that improve other aspects of the game. For
example, the Awake Aracana gives the player
three extra Revives, and makes the character
stronger for each Revive used.

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What's great about these Arcanas is how

they've given the player more options when
putting a build together. Weapons that
aren't that effective are made
overpowered in the extreme when the right
combination of Arcanas is used.

Updated on November 22, 2022, by Jeff

Drake: The release of Version 1.0 of Vampire
Survivors has finally filled out the arcana list.
This can always be expanded upon later, but
for now, every card on the arcana list has a
power. There's also been more than a few new
characters introduced into the game since this
article's original publishing. Some of these
new characters can exploit the arcana system
to ridiculous levels. This update adds five
additional entries to the list of best arcana
builds in Vampire Survivors that use the
newer arcanas or characters.

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15 Golden

The Golden build has become a little more

necessary due to the inclusion of the merchant,
and those oh-so-tempting golden eggs (for
10,000 gold). This build requires the Big
Trouser character to be really successful,
though any character with a high Greed bonus
will work.

This build's first arcana should be Disco of

Gold. The Clover, Spinach, Tiragisu, Empty
Tome, Attractorb, and Stone Mask are needed,
as are the Greatest Jubilee, Lightning Ring, and
Phieraggi weapons. Turn on limit breaking and
focus on making Phieraggi as fast as possible.

14 Gemini Build

Pairing the Cosmo character with the

Gemini arcana produces some interesting
results. Cosmo gets a free pair of weapons -
Peachone and Ebony Wings. These don't count
against its weapon maximum, and Cosmo can
still get Peachone and Ebony Wings while
playing. Gemini also gives a duplicate of
Peachone and Ebony Wings. This allows
Cosmo to have three pairs of Peachone
and Ebony Wings with only two weapon
slots.

Gatti Amari is a good weapon to pair with the

birds due to it benefiting from the Gemini
arcana. The only required passive item is the
Stone Mask (for Gatti Amari).

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13 Maximized Area

This build exploits the effects of the

Boogaloo of Illusions arcana when
combined with either Minnah or Concetta. This
will allow the player to maximize the area of
their weapons. By the time the run ends, almost
certainly at the 30-minute mark, the player's
projectile should be filling the screen.

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The best weapons to use with this build

are the Axe, Whip, Fire Wand, and Song of
Mana. The Garlic and Santa Water are also
smart choices with this build. The
Candelabrador, Silver Ring, and Torrona's Box
are required passive items, the other three slots
are free for the player to fill as they wish.

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12 Gem Explosion

One of the newest arcanas in the game is Game

Killer. This arcana turns the experience
gems into projectiles. This stops the
character from leveling up, so it's best to wait
and get this arcana with the second choice. The
gem projectiles do considerable damage to
compensate for never gaining experience.

The best weapon to combo with Game

Killer is the Gorgeous Moon (Pentagram).
This will kill all enemies on screen and then act
as a Vacuum to shower the screen with gems.

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11 Magnet Build

The last arcana in Vampire Survivors is Blood

Astronomia, which creates a damaging
zone around the player the same size as the
player's Magnet radius. This is one of the best
arcanas in the game. The weapons in this build
are Garlic, Song of Mana, Pentagram, Clock
Lancet, and Laurel. The Attractorb and
Duplicator passive items should be selected as
well.

This build gets even stronger with the Out

of Bounds arcana. This makes the Clock
Lancet incredibly overpowered. The best
characters to exploit this build is Poe or any of
the characters that give extra projectiles - like
Cavallo and Ambrojoe.

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10 The Immortal Devil

This build gives the player the most Revives

possible in Vampire Survivors, which almost
ensures that the player will make it to the 30-
minute mark of any stage. This build only has
three mandatory components. The first
component is the character named Krochi. This
character's passive bonus grants two free
Revives.

Combine Krochi with the Awake Arcana to give

him three extra Revives. The final component
of this build is the Tiragisu accessory, which
grants two Revives. When this build is
complete the player will have seven
Revives, this can be increased to eight if the
Revive power-up is purchased. This doesn't
guarantee victory, but it definitely puts a thumb
on the scale.

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9 Dommario In The Dark Night

Selecting Dommario in Vampire Survivors

The Chaos in the Dark Night Arcana changes

the speed of the character's projectiles. This
change ranges from -50% to +200%, so the
average bonus will be +75%. This effect resets
every ten seconds, providing a different bonus
to projectile speed. Not many weapons ignore
weapon speed bonuses. This makes this a
versatile Arcana.

This build has Dommario as the character.

Pasqualina also works with this build, but her
passive bonus to projectile speed is lower than
Dommario's. The weapons in this build are
King Bible (Dommario's starting weapon),
Runetracer, Magic Wand, Axe, Santa Water,
and Laurel. The Laurel is there purely to
protect Dommario due to his slow movement
speed. The Bracer accessory is the only one
required in this build. This boosts projectile
speed further and counters the penalty of the
Arcana.

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8 Soul Eater's Delight

Poe seems to be an underused character in

Vampire Survivors. His starting weapon,
Garlic, is nice; however, it's also underpowered.
The Garlic weapon becomes less and less
effective as the clock gets closer to the 30-
minute mark. Evolving Garlic into the Soul
Eater is a tremendous improvement, but
it's still a bit underpowered.

The Sarabande of Healing Arcana doubles

healing, and damages nearby enemies an
amount equal to the healing. The two weapons
this works with are the Soul Eater and the
Bloody Tear (evolved Whip). The player should
get the Whip, and evolve the Garlic and Whip,
as soon as possible.

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7 Immolating Arca

The Heart of Fire Arcana causes the fireball

projectiles from the Fire Wand and Hellfire
weapons to explode upon impact. This
Arcana also causes an explosion centered on
the character when they take damage. This
doesn't damage the character. This makes the
Fire Wand a more reliable weapon.

This build uses Arca for the character due to his

starting weapon being the Fire Wand. The
other main weapons are Song of Mana, and
Magic Wand, though the goal should be to
evolve the Fire Wand. Arce reduces cooldown
times for his weapons. Get the Empty Tome
accessory to further decrease weapon
cooldown times. The Canelabrador accessory
should be taken to make the fireballs as large as
possible.

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6 Poppea's Painting
Selecting Poppea in Vampire Survivors

Poppea is generally one of the best characters

to use. Her passive ability increases weapon
duration by 1% per level, with no maximum. By
the end of a stage, her weapons' duration is
ridiculously long. This build is designed to
exploit extended weapon durations for
maximum effect.

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The Lost & Found Painting Arcana alters the

duration of weapons from -50% to +200%. This
resets every ten seconds. The weapons in this
build are Song of Mana (Poppea's starting
weapon), King Bible, Santa Water, Runetracer,
Clock Lancet, and Phieraggi. The main
accessories are Spellbinder, Empty Tome,
Bracer, Skull O'Maniac, Duplicator, and
Attractorb.

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5 Iron Will Of Gennaro

Selecting Gennaro in Vampire Survivors

Gennaro is probably the least-played character.

His passive bonus is to increase the number of
his weapon's projectiles by +1. There are now
four characters that give three extra projectiles.
On top of this, Gennaro's starting weapon, the
Knife, is also the least desirable.

The Iron Blue Will Arcana gives players a

reason to select Gennaro. This Arcana
causes the projectiles of the Knife/Thousand
Edge, Axe/Death Sprial, Phiera Der Tuphello,
Eight The Sparrow, and Carréllo to bounce up
to three times and possibly pass through
enemies. All these weapons should be selected,
and do not combine Phiera Der Tuphello and
Eight The Sparrow into the Phieraggi. The
Duplicator, Bracer, and Spinach accessories
should be selected if the player is given the
chance.

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4 Waltz Of Wands
Selecting Leda in Vampire Survivors

This build is crazy powerful without the

accompanying Waltz of Pearls Arcana. With it,
it's arguably one of the strongest builds in
the game. The Waltz of Pearls Arcana causes
the projectiles of the Magic Wand/Holy Wand,
Fire Wand/Hellfire, Cross/Heaven Sword, and
Carello to bounce up to three times.

This build uses Leda as the character. Leda

starts with the Holy Wand, causing this build to
be a little overpowered from the start. The
other weapons in this build are Magic Wand,
Fire Wand, Cross, Runetracer, and King Bible.
Leda can have both the Holy Wand and Magic
Wand. The accessories are Empty Tome,
Spinach, Cross, Armor, Spellbinder, and
Attractorb.

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3 Antonio The Slasher

This build utilizes two Arcanas. It is possible to

have three; however, the second and third are
chosen from three randomly selected Arcanas.
Fortunately, there are few enough Arcanas that
it's likely the player will be able to get both
the Slash and Sarabande of Healing. The
Slash Arcana enables critical hits for the
Knife/Thousand Edge, Whip/Bloody Tear,
Axe/Death Spiral, and Heaven Sword. It also
doubles critical hit damage.

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This build uses Antonio - another criminally

underused character. This build uses the Whip,
Garlic, Cross, Axe, Santa Water, and Song of
Mana. The Empty Heart, Clover, Attractorb,
Spinach, Pummarola, and Candelabrador. With
this build, even the powerful enemies that
appear in the last few minutes will be as easy to
defeat as the enemies from the first couple of
minutes.

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2 The Lightshow
Selecting Cavallo in Vampire Survivors

This build is not only highly effective, but it's

also hypnotically beautiful as well. This
build also relies on two Arcanas: the Chaos in
the Dark Night and Waltz of Pearls. When
these two Arcanas are combined with the right
build the only enemy type that will ever come
close to the character is the bosses.

Mortaccio and Cavallo can both be used with

this build. In addition to the Bone or Cherry
Bomb, the weapons the player should pick are
Runetracer, Magic Wand, Fire Wand, Cross,
and Lightning Ring. The accessories for this
build are Armor, Empty Tome, Spinach, Clover,
Duplicator, and Bracer. When all weapons are
fully leveled the player can put the controller
down and enjoy the light show. Just watch out
for bosses.

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1 La Borra Ultima

The evolved form of the Santa Water, La Borra,

is easily in the top three best weapons in
Vampire Survivors. The effects of this weapon
can be manipulated to make it beyond
overpowered. This build uses three Arcana to
create a build that makes the character
unstoppable.

The Arcanas used in this build are Chaos in the

Dark Night, Lost & Found Painting, and Slash.
The best characters for this build are Poppea,
Lama, Porta, and Dommario. For the main
weapons, the player should try to get the Santa
Water, King Bible, Cross, Axe, and Laurel. The
Attractorb, Spellbinder, Bracer, Clover,
Candelabrador, and Empty Tome are the
required accessories. The overlapping zones of
the La Borra will kill most enemies instantly,
and in this build, these zones can grow to cover
most of the screen.

Vampire Survivors was released on Dec.

17th, 2021, for the PC and macOS.

Source: Vampire Survivors Wiki

MORE:
Vampire Survivors: The Best Build For
The Dairy Plant Stage

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Jeff Drake
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Graduate of Sam Houston State University -- Class of 2011

B.A. in History, minored in Political Science I have lived in th…
Houston TX area my whole life; love the winters...hate the
summers. I have conducted scholarly research on, and

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Vampire Survivors: The Best Build

For The Dairy Plant Stage
This stage demands a build with two things:
excellent crowd control and extra protection.
BY JEFF DRAKE PUBLISHED APR 4, 2022

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The Dairy Plant stage in Vampire Survivors

is set up a little differently than the other
stages. Because of this it presents a different set
of challenges - which requires a different type
of build. Like the Mad Forest and Green Acres,
the player is free to travel in any direction.
Unlike the Mad Forest and Green Acres, there
are numerous obstacles in the stage.

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This stage is made even more difficult due to

the enemies. The creatures in the Dairy Plant
seem stronger than those in Green Acres, and
that stage is designed to be difficult. The
enemies' toughness allows them to crowd the
player and potentially trap them against one of
the many obstacles scattered around. This stage
demands a build with two things: excellent
crowd control and extra protection.

Character
The character selection screen in Vampire Survivors

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This build works by taking one of the stats to

the extreme to get the most out of the weapons.
The two stats that are the easiest to get to
insane levels are weapon duration and area.
This puts three characters at the top of the list -
Poppea, Dommario, and Porta.

Poppea is the first choice. She starts with

the Song of Mana and has a faster move
speed than most characters. Porta is second
due to having the easiest start of the three.
Dommario is third; he's slow, but the Wings
accessory can be found in the Dairy Plant.

Primary Weapon 1 - Santa Water

Selecting the Santa Water weapon in Vampire Survivors

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Santa Water was always good at crowd

control. When it got an evolved form, the La
Borra, it became even better at crowd control
and now provides some protection to the
character. At the start of the stage this weapon
will be next to useless; the damaging zones
created by the Santa Water are too small and
too scattered to help.

With a boosted duration the La Borra has time

to form an area around the character made of
overlapping zones. This will save the player
when the werewolves and axe knights start
appearing at the 18-minute mark.

Primary Weapon 2 - Song Of Mana

Selecting the Song of Mana weapon in Vampire Survivors

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The Song of Mana attacks vertically and pierces

enemies. The obstacles in the Dairy Plant will
force players to travel through narrow
passages. The vertical attack of this weapon will
make navigating these narrow passages a lot
less harrowing. This weapon needs the Skull
O'Maniac accessory to evolve, but the Curse
status given by this accessory shouldn't be a
problem with this build.

The evolved version of the Song of Mana, the

Mannajja, has a wider attack area and a
chance of slowing enemies it damages. The
Dairy Plant has a lot of fast-moving enemies;
being able to slow them down is a huge help.

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Primary Weapon 3 - King Bible

Selecting the King Bible weapon in Vampire Survivors

There aren't many weapons in Vampire

Survivors that scale with changes to duration.
The Santa Water and Mannajja are the only two
evolved weapons that benefit from an increase
to duration. The King Bible scales with
duration, but its evolved form, the Unholy
Vespers, is always active - making duration
irrelevant.

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The King Bible is one of the best weapons

in the game. It does a lot of damage. Most
importantly, it provides an extra layer of
protection in a stage where protection is
required. The King Bible was also picked
because the Spellbinder accessory is a primary
accessory in this build.

Primary Weapon 4 - Laurel

Selecting the Laurel weapon in Vampire Survivors

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It may not have been mentioned yet, but the

Dairy Plant is a difficult stage and multiple
items of protection should be selected. The
Laurel is easily the best defensive weapon
in Vampire Survivors. It gives the character a
personal force field that prevents damage for a
short while.

There will be many moments in the first 15

minutes in which the player will be weaving
around swarms of enemies and obstacles. The
Laurel will stop the damage that
accumulates from repeatedly brushing against
enemies as they close in from all sides. This
weapon should be gotten to around level four
as soon as possible; after this focus on leveling-
up the Bible or Santa Water.

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Primary Accessory 1 - Spellbinder

Selecting the Spellbinder accessory in Vampire Survivors

The Spellbinder accessory increases duration

by 10% per level, to a max of 50%. Poppea's
bonus is a 1% increase to duration per level,
without a set maximum. Dommario gives a
+40% to weapon duration. The combination of
either of these two characters with the
Spellbinder accessory increases the weapon
duration to the point where it can exceed the
cooldown time.

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While selecting this accessory is required for

this build, it's not necessary to focus on getting
it to level five until the Santa Water or King
Bible is getting near level eight.

Primary Accessory 2 - Spinach

Selecting the Spinach accessory in Vampire Survivors

As mentioned above, the enemies in the Dairy

Plant seem to be a little tougher than the
enemies in other stages. The Spinach accessory
increases the damage of the player's weapons;
thereby allowing the player to keep pace with
the enemy swarms that get stronger every
minute or two. The Spinach accessory in one
of the best general use accessories in
Vampire Survivors.

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The inclusion of the Spinach in this build

makes the Fire Wand a good choice for a
secondary weapon. It gives the player a longer-
range than the primary weapons provide, and
it's one of the more powerful weapons in the
game in terms of damage dealt. The Fire Wand
doesn't scale with changes to duration.

Secondary Weapons
Selecting the Cross weapon in Vampire Survivors

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The primary weapons in this build deal damage

indirectly in a wide-area. What this build needs
is a point defense style weapon - a rapid-fire
weapon designed to concentrate its projectiles
on the nearest target. The best two weapons
of this kind is the Magic Wand and the Cross.
The Cross does more damage and pierces
enemies as it streaks across the screen. The
higher damage makes the Cross the ideal pick
for this build.

The Magic Wand is a close second to the Cross.

This build is designed for long weapon
durations; with the goal of having the primary
weapons stay active for as long as possible.
Shortening cooldown times works towards this
goal by allowing weapons to fire faster. The
Empty Tome evolves the Magic Wand into the
Holy Wand, and it also shortens the cooldown
times of all weapons. This build leaves enough
secondary weapon slots open for the Cross and
Magic Wand to both be selected. The
Runetracer and Bone perform well in the
more confined areas of the Dairy Plant.

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Secondary Accessories
Selecting the Crown accessory in Vampire Survivors

Another direction the player can go with this

build is to boost the area of effect of the
weapons as much as possible. This is why Porta
was suggested as a character; she boosts the
area of all weapons by 30%. With the
Candelabrador accessory at level five this
bonus becomes 80%. The Candelabrador
being a bonus accessory in the Dairy Plant
makes getting this combo very easy to
accomplish. The La Borra with an 80% area
increase provides all the protection the
character will need in the final minutes.

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The Empty Tome works well with the

Spellbinder to increase the fire-rate of the
weapons. If Poppea is the selected character the
player should get the Crown accessory to gain
levels faster. There isn't a limit on how high her
bonus to duration can get. If Poppea gets to
level 150, her weapon's duration get a 150%
increase.

Final Thoughts
Porta starting the Dairy Plant stage

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If using Porta don't move for the first few

minutes. Her cooldown time is greatly reduced
until she reaches level two. Let the experience
crystals accumulate on the ground, then get the
green gem just to the right the starting
position. After getting the green gem go
straight up and get the Vacuum pick-up item to
collect all the gems scattered around. This
should get Porta to around level seven or eight.

At the start of the level head up to the area

around the Attractorb bonus accessory and stay
in the immediate area. Don't linger too long
in one spot or a Green Death will appear
and slowly chase the player for a while. When
the accessory slots are filled get the Attractorb;
after this head south and get the Wings, then
east for the free Candelabrador. Lastly, don't
forget to max-out the Duration Power-up
before trying this build.

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Vampire Survivors is available for PC and

MacOS.

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To The Genre

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Related Topics
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INDIE GAMES

About The Author

Jeff Drake
(182 Articles Published)

Graduate of Sam Houston State University -- Class of 2011

B.A. in History, minored in Political Science I have lived in th…
Houston TX area my whole life; love the winters...hate the
summers. I have conducted scholarly research on, and

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